Sense Memory
by AddisonRules
Summary: Grant Ward considers the implications of his secrets where it concerns his relationship with Melinda May. Some implied Philinda as well. Spoilers for all of season 1.


So I'm not a MayWard shipper, but I find the idea of them all angst-ridden and interesting and I don't hate them either. Let's face it, what man wouldn't want Melinda May? So this is me wondering what it was like for Ward to want someone he knew he might have to kill someday.

I own nada. Just having some fun.

* * *

He shouldn't be here.

Ward thinks it even as he presses his cheek against the smooth skin of May's back, his fingers tracing her shoulder blades, her spine, his mind amazed that someone who has fought such deadly battles has such perfect skin over most of her body.

He draws his hand down to the curve of her waist and squeezes gently as he lifts his weight off of her, and May reads his signal, twists her lean and wondrous body so she's lying on her back looking up at him.

But he should definitely not be here.

It had seemed like such a good strategy when she left that door open in invitation. May had always been the biggest threat to his mission; the one person on Coulson's team who had the power not just to beat him in a fight but with the natural instincts to pick up on any slip he might make. Connecting to her personally, intimately, might throw her off balance. Not that strategy was the only thing that had brought him to her. He'd needed May that night... has needed her on nights since. And the hours he spends in whatever hotel room she beckons him to are always filled with intense pleasure and a comfort he's not used to from sharing his bed.

Still, keeping her close seemed smart. She is a ferocious observer. In their late-night conversations, she's related details from briefings and meals and casual moments that he never picked up on, and none of it related to their missions. Now he notices them all the time... the way Fitz glances to him when he wants approval after a mission suggestion; the adoration Simmons throws his way like he's the big brother she never had; the gaps in conversation Coulson leaves to let Grant step up and lead more; the true desire to please that Skye tries to mask as a lack of concern.

May has made him more aware, more in tune with their team, and more than once he's had to push down an urge to throw up over it. Because she's doing it to help him. She thinks he can really thrive on this team and she wants that for him. And someday he'll use what she's taught him against Coulson and the science kids and Skye.

He'll use it against her.

The scent of the lotion she uses washes over him as her body shifts against his, and Ward feels his breath catch. It's nothing flowery or filled with perfume. Instead it's something clean and cool that makes him think of an early morning after it rains.

Somehow he knows that for the rest of his life, he'll think of her when he smells the rain.

One of the places where her skin has been marred is her left thigh. She told him their second night together that it was from a fight in Myanmar her third year in the field. A sawed off pipe caught her in the leg, ripped the flesh in a way that just wouldn't heal smoothly. Whenever he gets near that mark, he feels himself drawn to it, needing to touch it with his fingers or his mouth, as if he can still do something to take the pain away.

When his lips touch the skin tonight, she stifles a moan, and Ward's body responds, the lust building inside of him, pushing away the rational thoughts that have been telling him all night he shouldn't be here.

Because it doesn't matter that there are no strings, that May doesn't love him, and he is maybe falling in love with someone else. When he glances up at her and sees the way she looks at him, eyes dark and filled with want for him, Ward knows that his betrayal of this woman will turn him inside out.

She's like him... broken pieces pulled back together... and letting him in her bed even just for sex took a leap of trust he can tell she doesn't often make.

He shouldn't be here.

But he presses his lips to the inside of her thigh and she whispers his name and he can't leave.

And he hates himself a little bit more.

* * *

When the day comes, all he can hear as he moves toward her is the way she whispered his name in her bed.

_"Ward."_

The softness, the need, the invitation laced in that single word from her haunts him, and the feel of the gun at the small of his back feels like fire burning into his skin... a brand of self-hatred for a man about to do the unthinkable.

About to kill a woman who trusted him with her body.

He takes time to remind himself that this is his mission. Garrett's orders are law and he has to follow them, and the order was to cross off Coulson's team. Fitz, Simmons, and Tripp will survive because they followed Coulson on the trail of the distraction Garrett had put out there to pull focus. The tactic May called them on cold, but that Coulson chased after anyway.

Skye is safe. She has value to Garrett.

But May is in the way. May is still the one person who can stop Ward from succeeding. So he'll follow his orders. He'll do what needs to be done.

He smells rain as he walks near her and feels his step falter.

The Bus gives him a reason to be looking for her. When May tells him the repairs are done, gives him the flight limits for the fuel supply, he reaches back as smoothly as he can for the gun.

_"Ward."_

He's looking right at her as he hears it, so he knows it's in his head. She never says his name that way anywhere but in bed, and they don't do that anymore, not since Loralei. But it stops him just long enough that he sees her pick up a bag and turn for the door.

"You're leaving?"

She is, explains that Coulson can't forgive her, doesn't want her there.

His hand eases away from the gun.

Ward knows that this is ripping May to shreds inside, not that she'd let him see that. But he remembers them in the med bay after Russo's knife added to her collection of scars. Coulson is her center and losing him...

But Ward has never been so grateful for someone else's heartache. Because Melinda May is walking out the door, leaving Providence Base and the team behind.

She'll haunt him anyway, because he knows when she finds out what he is... who he is, she'll hate him. She'll probably come looking for him because he's betraying Coulson and she'll never forgive him for it, even if Coulson can't forgive her.

But today Grant Ward didn't have to kill Melinda May.

And for a while at least, the scent of the rain won't make him see her blood on his hands.


End file.
